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ISLANDS

Jason Curzake and Shey Rivera are a performance duo that explores dream and memory of their native islands through video, body and word. Gender, identity, ritual, and sexuality are explored through body, technology, witchcraft, and decadence.

ISLANDS is an exploration and abstraction of ritual, devoid of traditional context; a counter image where the past -memory and nostalgia- is liberated by the present through the visceral body, video, and performance.

It all began when Jason surreptitiously prevented Shey from drowning in a small, plastic tub of water, as part of her “Drinking for Orchestra” piece in “ONO: 95 Instructions at 95 Empire”, a performance of event scores from Yoko Ono’s book “Grapefruit” curated by Ric Royer at AS220’s 95 Empire Black Box Theater in May 2013.

ISLANDS is active and progressive. It creates immersive performance environments that recall beach culture and connecting to the geography of living on the coast. At times satirical and other times reflective, ISLANDS incorporates any medium that this progression may call for: bodies, visceral action, light, projection, installation, poetry, video, music and song. Shey and Jason forge a unique and evolving lexicon between them that is both intentionally exposed to an audience, yet intensely personal. It is a conversation about shared identity that confronts the challenge of representing it visually. Memories of their native islands and their familial histories -simultaneously vastly different and eerily similar- were the ideas at the heart of the project’s conception. However, this quickly expanded to include exploration of gender and sexual identity, cultural intimacy and isolationism, exhibitionism and introversion, the value of intellectualism, and the power of ritual, choreography and ceremony.

Shey and Jason, along with poet Sussy Santana are also the founders and curators of a “Full Moon Fluxus Cabaret” series at AS220’s 95 Empire Black Box Theater.